NIGERIA: Controversy over student dress codes

A debate in Nigeria over student dress codes rages on - running the gamut from student academic achievement, discipline, professionalism, conformity with social mores and clothes-as-political-statement to consumerism. While some university authorities argue that mode of dress is an important factor in determining student success or failure and should thus be subject to rules, others - especially in the humanities and social sciences - remain unconvinced.

Some university lecturers have reported indiscriminate and "chaotic" dress among students on campus, with students "constantly in festive mood". In some lecture halls, especially in humanities and social sciences, student attire on Fridays has been reported as contributing to "a carnival atmosphere".

It has been claimed that a number of students adopting flamboyant fashion have performed poorly, both in continuous assessment tests and exams. While surely coincidental, this finding has spurred debates among academic staff on the need to prescribe dress codes with a view to improving student results.

Dress codes applying specifically to lecture halls have been instituted by some faculties, while others struggle to reach consensus on the matter.

Leading the way in enforcing dress codes have been university medical and law faculties. Lecturers in medicine have been instrumental in initiating reforms to student attire, insisting that the mode of dress in the pre-clinical section - which includes students from all branches of science, where there was no set dress code - should not be 'imported' into the faculty's clinical section.

During orientation week medical students were provided with a number of justifications for adhering to the white-coat dress code. These included an appeal to tradition, professional appearance ('neat and smart') and the idea that wearing the uniform inspired mutual confidence between patients and medical students (future doctors). The vast majority of students have complied with the directive. But a few recalcitrant students have been dismissed after warnings by student disciplinary committees.

Law faculties have also instituted a student dress code: white shirt and black trousers for male students, and white shirt and black skirt for females. The Council of Legal Education, made up of law lecturers and representatives of the Nigerian Bar Association, mandated faculties to proceed in this regard.

Other faculties are fairly flexible on the issue. Nevertheless, there have been some cases of conflict between students and academic staff on student dress. In the absence of clear rules, there have been complaints that some male students dress for lectures in basketball shoes and t-shirts emblazoned with American baseball club logos, while some female students wear tight and 'sexually suggestive' clothing that reveals their underwear.

Isong Akpan, an anthropology lecturer at the University of Uyo and supporter of the dress code policy decision of faculties of medicine and law, reminded his colleagues recently that mode of dress has always been in line with the dictates of the authorities of each profession. This tradition is as old as human society itself.

Mode of dress in every profession, he insisted, was aimed at attaining a set of goals. Success, it was believed, could only be guaranteed if members abided by the dress code. It created an esprit de corps. It galvanised members into collective action.

"All military and religious formations insist on specific dress mode for their members, with a view to instilling discipline and solidarity in their places of work," Akpan affirmed.

Psychologist Akinwale Banjo provided insights into "the liberal and flexible disposition" of dress culture in other university faculties. He attributed the tendency of students in these faculties to adopt flamboyant attire to contradictory forces: a tradition of signalling political protest through dress and the impact of consumerism.

In American and European universities in the late 1960s, students and some lecturers in humanities and social sciences faculties initiated unorthodox modes of dress as a form of political protest - for example, against US involvement in Vietnam. In the 1980s there was rejection of European and American government support for apartheid and for Portuguese colonies in Africa.

Faculties of medicine and law did not follow suit, according to Banjo, because their lecturers had always defended the status quo. He argued that by the end of colonial rule and apartheid, rebellious modes of dress had become established as the norm in humanities and social sciences faculties. This fashion is further entrenched by the influence of multinationals and the pressures of consumerism on students.

Investigations in Nigerian universities indicate that students in faculties of medicine and law have more or less accepted the dress code. However, the debate in other faculties is ongoing, with Christian and Islamic fundamentalists now joining in.